Can Kamala Harris win the race for the White House after her victory in the first presidential debate broadcast on Tuesday night?
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Indeed, her performance inspired many voters who overwhelmingly preferred her to that delivered by her Republican rival. According to CNN, 63% of respondents declared the Democratic candidate the winner, compared to 37% for Trump.
At YouGov, 54% of respondents preferred Kamala Harris to Donald Trump, while this proportion rises to 31% for the former Republican president.
On the Fox News panelists’ side, 12 participants gave victory to Kamala Harris, against 5 for Donald Trump.
However, the dice are not yet cast among Democrats, since a good performance in a debate is not necessarily synonymous with success at the polls, illustrates analyst Richard Latendresse on the show Contexts.
“One of the main reasons why presidential debates generally don’t influence voters much… is that most of those who take the time to watch the debates already have their minds made up, despite their answers to pollsters,” Latendresse said.
The latter cites the re-election of George W. Bush against Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
“They had three debates, and the polls in the days that followed showed that Kerry had clearly won those three debates. Well, we know the rest. George W. Bush had amassed 3 million more votes than John Kerry,” he explained.
Barack Obama also proved the pollsters wrong by winning re-election despite a disastrous performance in 2012 against Republican Mitt Romney. The Gallup polling firm had Romney winning with a 72% margin, compared to 20% for Obama.
“(The firm) believes, to date, that this is the largest margin of victory in a presidential debate in its history,” Mr. Latendresse said.
The most significant example, according to the journalist, is the series of debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
According to CNN, the former Secretary of State had obtained 35 points more than Donald Trump in the first debate. The Democrat’s performance in the second debate had allowed her to obtain 23 points more than the Republican. This lead was established at 29 points in the third debate, according to the firm Gallup.
However, these good performances did not allow Hillary Clinton to reach the White House.
See his full analysis in the video above.
